State Engineer Dick Wolfe finished new rules for area coalbed methane wells Dec. 30. They allow most of the wells in San Juan Basin to be treated as nontributary, meaning the water in the coal seams does not connect with surface streams. “There’s a lot at stake. If they can turn Colorado water law on its head like this and get away with it, I don’t know how anybody can feel like their water rights are safe,” said Jim Fitzgerald, who successfully sued the state in 2005 for not protecting his water rights from coalbed methane drilling. Fitzgerald’s wife, Mary, and Bill and Elizabeth Vance of Archuleta County also were plaintiffs.
Their case went to the state Supreme Court, which said coalbed methane wells need to get a water permit from the state engineer. What’s more, gas companies might be required to create augmentation plans to replace the water they use…
The Supreme Court case scared water regulators – who feared a blizzard of paperwork – and gas companies – who did not want large new costs for drilling wells. Shortly after the Supreme Court ruling last April, the Legislature directed Wolfe’s office to set rules about which wells don’t need augmentation plans. The rulemaking is ongoing, but the portion that covers coalbed methane wells in Southwest Colorado was finalized in December…
During the rulemaking, area gas companies collaborated to create a map of nontributary water. Wolfe adopted that map as official state policy. The change takes effect at the end of January, but Fitzgerald and other land-owners plan to appeal to water courts. Wolfe defended his decision to use the gas companies’ model of underground water. It used good science based on “complete and robust data,” Wolfe wrote in his justification for the rules. Zeller, too, defended the way companies drew the map. “If we were in doubt, we erred in the interest of the other water rights holders,” she said…
Durango City Manager Ron LeBlanc sent Wolfe a letter last month to say he thought the rules could hurt the city’s water rights on the Animas and Florida rivers. “We believe the results of such rulemaking may not be manifested for decades to come, and that the effect of the dewatering of aquifers in the area of our water rights will have a detrimental and irreversible effect on the city’s pubic water supply,” LeBlanc wrote…
San Juan National Forest Supervisor Mark Stiles sent Wolfe a letter asking for a delay until federal land officials could do detailed studies on springs in the land they manage. Wolfe didn’t grant the delay, but the Forest Service does not plan to appeal, Stiles said…
Wolfe said he took seriously the concerns from foresters, city officials and others. “I don’t want people to think that we were totally dismissive of these individuals’ concerns,” he said. In general, Wolfe’s map puts wells in the southern parts of La Plata and Archuleta counties into the nontributary zone, exempting them from strict regulations. Most of the Southern Ute Indian Reservation is in the nontributary zone.
Even with the nontributary exemption, gas companies still will have to file well permits for more than 4,000 Southwest Colorado wells. And the tributary wells will need court-approved plans to replace the water they use. Those plans will go back to Judge Gregory Lyman, the Durango water judge whose ruling started the whole affair, Zeller said. “He’s going to get a whole bunch of paperwork,” she said.
